Gli amici di Eddie Coyle

If The Godfather (1972) resembles high opera, then this movie is a cheap beer. It's a really cynical look at street-level crime where trust in your fellow man is about as rare as an honest politician. No glamour here. Mitchum looks like he's coming off a two-week bender, with a chubby wife, a tenement house, and a passel of kids. He's going nowhere except to jail unless he squeals. In the jungle of blue-collar crime, he's a survivor, but just barely. What a long way from the iconic super-star.

Great script, with some memorable dialog, especially when Mitchum starts grousing in elegant vernacular. Too bad the gun dealer (Steven Keats, I believe) is overshadowed by Mitchum's icon. He's a fascinating study in criminal ethics. Those scenes with Mitchum are little gems of circling-dogs and wary self-interest.

For plain slimy characters, it's hard to beat Peter Boyle's moon-lighting bartender and Richard Jordan's angel-faced cop. Between the two of them, they could give law- enforcement a bad name. And that final scene is about as quietly shattering as any I've seen. There we learn just how important a working-class stiff is to our criminal justice system.

Then too, that brutal hockey game amounts to a vivid metaphor for the world these characters spring from. Probably the movie was too low-key and downbeat to attract much attention. But in my book, it's a genuine sleeper, the most honest look at the Darwinian world of urban crime that I've seen. As the movie likes to say, let's all have a nice day!